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Friday, 29 December 2017

It is
eighteen months since the EU Referendum and a great deal has happened since
then, but most of it has been removed from any sense of reality. For the first
six months all we knew was that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, something which lasted
until the Lancaster
House speech when it was announced that Brexit meant leaving the single
market, the customs union and all institutions and agencies that entailed a
role for the ECJ; a position then endorsed by the White
Paper. It is worth pausing to reflect on this, because that six month delay
gives the lie to the claim that the Referendum vote automatically entailed hard
Brexit: had it done so, there would have been no such delay in announcing it.
We also now know that the Cabinet did not have a formal discussion of the
government’s post-Brexit plan until just a couple of weeks ago, and that no
detailed impact assessment of it was made. So it would seem that the hard Brexit
decision was made by Theresa May and her advisers, rather than by Cabinet, and
with little understanding of what its implications would be.Nevertheless,
it was this decision, endorsed by Parliament, which framed the terms of the
Article 50 letter and thus fundamentally shaped the way that the phase 1
negotiations occurred. Throughout those negotiations Brexiters continued to
spout nonsense – that there would be the ‘row of the summer’ over sequencing; that
the EU could ‘go whistle’ for a financial settlement; that ‘no deal’ was a
possible or even desirable outcome; that the Irish border issue could be solved
by magical, non-existent technologies. All this – along, of course, with the bizarre
decision to call an election, and
its outcome – was a stupendous waste of time and good will. Thus nine
months into the Article 50 period the UK has agreed to pretty
much everything the EU set out at the beginning, as was always inevitable
unless the government was willing to accept the ‘no deal’ calamity that a breakdown
of the talks would mean. Yet even at that point some Brexiters tried to say
that the phase 1 agreement wasn’t really binding – only to be immediately
disabused of that by the EU.That, in
brief, has been the story so far (for far more detail, see the last 110 posts
on this blog!) and it is a woeful one of incompetence, unforced errors and a
profound refusal by the government and especially the Brexit Ultras to engage in
a serious and realistic way with the policy that they, themselves, wish to pursue.
But 2018 is the year that Brexit will get real, and politicians will have to
get real about Brexit – real with themselves, real with the public, and real
about the EU-27. The crunch date will come, of course, in October 2018 when the
final terms of the Article 50 process will need to be agreed for ratification
to occur by March 2019 (see Paul
Waugh of HuffPost for a great summary of the process).That is an
astonishingly short period of time – really, only nine months - and there is
simply no way that it can be achieved if the government continue in the way
that they have conducted themselves over the last nine months. But there is
another, less obvious, crunch date coming and that is March
2018. That date will mark a year before Brexit actually happens and if by
then it is not clear that there will be standstill (i.e. status quo) transition
period then really serious disinvestments and relocations will begin to happen
because a year is about the minimum timeframe for businesses to make those kind
of decisions.So this is
the first and most urgent thing the government need to get real about and they
have to do so in the next few weeks. There is going to have to be a standstill
transition and if the Ultras don’t
like the idea of being a “vassal state” then tough. That’s the consequence
of the policy they sold to the British people. The only alternative would be to
seek to extend the Article 50 period. It’s highly unlikely, but not
impossible, that the EU-27 would agree, of course, but in any case Ultras won’t
accept that because they see it as postponing, perhaps forever, Brexit. But the
time has come for Mrs May to stop pandering to the foot-stamping Ultras who
have so consistently and so conspicuously failed
to understand or accept the basic consequences of their own actions. Nothing
will satisfy the Ultras because
they don’t want to be satisfied and let’s be clear: they represent only a
tiny fraction of leave voters, and certainly don’t express ‘the will of the
people’.It is also
down to Mrs May, and the government in general, to stop peddling factually nonsensical
claims to the British people about what is going to happen now, or what can
happen now. Thus, first, what was agreed in phase 1 is not contingent on the outcome of phase 2. It defines the agreed
exit terms. Second, phase 2 is not
going to yield a future trade deal, it can only (both because of the terms of
the Article 50 process, and the timescale) yield a political framework within
which that trade deal can be negotiated once Britain has become a third country.
There
will be no trade deal in March 2019, nor will there be one for a long time
after that, and very probably this will mean a significantly longer transition
period than is currently envisaged by either the UK or the EU.Third,
whatever the final terms of trade are going to be, May, the government, and
Brexiters in general, have got to get real, and quickly, about the incompatible
nature of the policies and red lines they currently espouse. That is, there isn’t
going to be anything remotely close to the current trade arrangements unless
the UK stays in the single market via EFTA/EEA and signs a customs treaty very
similar to customs union membership. If the terms are going to be something
like CETA then that is going to be a long way from the current situation,
especially as regards services, and, in turn is going
to be incompatible with having an open
border in Ireland. Moreover, as regards non-trade issues then, just as has
been accepted for citizens’ rights, participation in all sorts of agencies in
areas including aviation, nuclear materials, security and policing will mean
accepting some role for the ECJ. There are multiple circles that can't be squared here, and May should give a Prime Ministerial speech or broadcast to explain this to the British people. They deserve, and can for the most part undoubtedly take, some honesty and realism.There are
also some more specific things to get real about. The governmental structure
created to handle Brexit doesn’t make sense, split as it is between the Cabinet
Office and DExEU, the
latter of which has been a mess from the start and which has suffered
multiple resignations and staffing problems at both political and administrative
levels. This was most sharply revealed by OIly
Robbins' move from DExEU to the Cabinet Office. DExEU appears to be
dysfunctional and it is not clear that David Davis is on top of his job or,
even, what his job is. Whilst rethinking his role and that of his department,
it would be a good time for Liam Fox to be told that there is no prospect of
him making any substantive progress on trade deals with other countries: it’s
not just that no deals can be signed until after the transition period, it’s
that no country will discuss the details of such deals until the final terms of
Brexit are known. And, finally, all politicians need to get real about the fact
that EU leaders and officials do actually have access to the British media:
statements made for home consumption can and do adversely affect the
negotiations.So much for
the government, but in 2018 the Labour
opposition are also going to have to get real and clarify their position.
In particular, if they have got any sense, they will clearly and concertedly
back staying in the single market as the only way of both ‘honouring the
Referendum result’ and avoiding the complexity and damage of Brexit. There are
signs that they are inching towards that policy but inching is no longer good
enough. Talking about a ‘jobs first Brexit’ or being opposed to a ‘Tory Brexit’
is simply meaningless. The only way to make those slogans meaningful is to support
a soft Brexit or no Brexit at all. And that, too, needs to be the position of
the Tory backbench ‘rebels’. They will need to do far, far more than they did
in backing
amendment seven, the one time in 2017 they showed even a fraction of the
ruthlessness of their Ultra colleagues.And,
finally, 2018 is also the year when ‘hard remainers’ are going to have to get
real. Although it’s conceivable that Brexit might be abandoned completely, this
looks less and less likely for the reasons I
set out in detail in another post. I don’t like that, and I’d be happy to
be proved wrong, but barring a major, sustained
change in the opinion polls in the next few months that is how it seems to
me. If this is so, it means that the best hope of minimizing the damage now is
to seek the kind of soft Brexit which, were it not for the baleful influence of
the Brexit Ultras, we might have had and could – just possibly – still get.In the very
first post on the blog, I wrote that it started from the position that the
Referendum vote was a national catastrophe, and that is still my view. But even
given that – or even for those reading this who do not share this view – what has
been striking about all that has happened since the vote is that the botched
and incompetent way that the government have approached Brexit has made the
worst of a bad job (see this
great summary from Jonathan Lis). They have only a few months – really,
only a few weeks - left to retrieve the situation and they can only do that by
firmly squashing the Ultras. If they do not then any pleasure that we remainers
may feel at seeing Brexit crash and burn will be more than offset by seeing the
consequences. Because a crash and burn won’t take us back to 22 June 2016 but
will propel us into a national evisceration in 2019.

Thursday, 14 December 2017

Goodness
knows remainers have had little enough to cheer about since June 2016 and so it
is not surprising that the passing
of ‘amendment 7’ in defiance of the government has been greeted with
delight. I am not sure, though, that it warrants any more than two cheers and
possibly not even that. Likewise, the Brexiter depiction of it as a betrayal of
Brexit is ludicrous, and serves only to demonstrate that victimhood
is their comfort zone.The main
significance of the amendment lies not so much in the fact that it was passed
but in the fact that it was not defeated. That is to say, had it been defeated
that would effectively have represented the moment at which parliament had
decided to have no substantive involvement in Brexit. It would also have
signalled that there was no point at which the putative Tory rebels would
rebel, and it is they who hold the key to any shifting in the government’s
position on Brexit. They, or at least some of them, did and should be applauded
for that given the undoubted pressure if not intimidation they will have been
exposed to. And this in turn may
embolden them and others to rebel again – in a sense, having taken the flak
once they have less to lose from future rebellions, whilst having won means
that other potential rebels can believe there would be some point in sacrificing
their careers.So all of
that is on the positive side. But all it really opens is the tiniest keyhole of
possibility for affecting what happens with Brexit. On the face of it, it means
that parliament will be able to vote on whether or not to implement whatever
deal with the EU the government negotiate. What this will mean in practice is far
from clear. If it just means ‘this deal’ or ‘no deal’, it means nothing since
as even Brexiters now seem to realise any deal is better than no deal. It is, I
suppose, conceivable but highly unlikely that things will have changed in such
a way by then that the choice got set up as ‘this deal’ or ‘seek to revoke
Article 50 notification’. Or it could, conceivably and perhaps just slightly
more likely, be that by that point the EU-27 had given a very strong signal
that extending the Article 50 period would be agreed. Then, the vote could
perhaps be ‘this deal’ or ‘re-negotiate under an extension’.What all
this underscores is that – for all the talk of parliamentary sovereignty and
taking back control – what happens with Brexit is now largely beyond the
control of the UK and largely in the control of the EU. This has been so ever
since Article 50 was triggered. That was the point at which parliament, thanks solely
to Miller’s victory in the Supreme Court, really did have a moment of complete
control - and gave it away.Increasingly
it is clear that the decision by the government and endorsed by parliament to
give Article 50 notification when it did and in the way that it did was a
calamitous mistake of historic proportions. It set a shape for hard Brexit the
implications of which few in the government seem to have understood and which
neither the public nor parliament really support. It was done without, as we
now know for sure, any rigorous assessment of the impact of hard Brexit or any
serious planning for the negotiations. We can see that both the EU and indeed
the Irish government were far better prepared than the UK at the point the
Article 50 letter was sent. And the timing of that letter was solely dictated by
the political imperative for Theresa May to assure the Ultras that she was ‘sound’
on Brexit.From that
moment onwards, the British parliament became a sideshow to the ineluctable
reality of time draining away, and the power balance shifted irrevocably to the
EU-27. A lot of the excitement about the amendment 7 vote derives from the fact
that British political journalists have not caught up with that fact. They have
a huge expertise and a sophisticated understanding of Westminster politics - the
procedures, the votes, the personalities, the drama - and are heavily invested
in regarding that as
central to the plot. By contrast (with some honourable exceptions) very few
British political journalists have more than the most superficial grasp of
Brexit issues. This is very evident when politicians are interviewed and are
allowed to get away unchallenged with glaring, basic factual errors about, for
example, how the Brexit process works. It isn’t because the journalists are
necessarily biased for or against Brexit, it’s that they don’t have enough knowledge
about it. Similarly, there is very little understanding of EU politics, and
that has been true throughout Britain’s membership.There is a
parallel here in the way that some politicians seem to think that Brexit is a
solely domestic political process. This was most recently and most egregiously manifest
in David
Davis’ pronouncement that the phase 1 agreement was not, after all,
binding. It seems not to have occurred to him that this would come to the
notice of – and would dismay – the EU with whom the agreement had so tortuously
been made. And this in turn reflects the fact that so much of Brexit is bound
up not just with domestic politics but, more precisely, with the internal
politics of the Tory party. Davis’ comments seem to have been intended solely to
re-assure the Ultras.Which brings
us back to the amendment 7 vote, which is yet another manifestation of the Tory
party’s 30 year European war to which, through the Referendum, they have
shackled the entire country. But as a result things have now moved on. The
games within and between British political parties are no longer centre stage
and the over-focus on Westminster has become a grotesque anomaly since Article
50 was triggered. Of course parliament may, depending on how things develop,
come to re-gain a significance in the Brexit process. It would be very foolish
indeed, given the instability of the government, to bet against the possibility
of some new parliamentary conjuncture leading to a dramatic change or reversal
of policy. But, for now at least, it is a sideshow. Last night’s vote was
significant to the extent that it put a bit of life into the show but it was
very little, and probably too late.[This is probably the last post I will write on
this blog this year. I’m really very grateful indeed to the large number of
people who have read the blog this year and hope that you will continue to do
so and find it of interest. I’m sorry that I have had to disable
comments – the reason was the combination of abuse and spam bots. I don’t see
why I should provide a forum for either.]

Friday, 8 December 2017

The most
obvious feature of what has been agreed is that in all but a few minor details
Britain has accepted all the terms set out by the EU at the beginning of the
negotiations. That was always inevitable unless we simply pulled out of the
talks and committed national suicide, and it would have been far quicker and
squandered less goodwill had the government accepted it on day one. That they
did not reflects the glacial pace at which Ultra Brexiters have to be forced,
piece by piece, to face reality.Thus past
financial commitments will be honoured and the ECJ red line has been broken on citizens’ rights and by
implication in other areas as well. As for the Irish border, the situation is
exactly as outlined in my previous post. A word fudge - ‘full alignment’
between the UK and the EU if no alternative deal is reached which keeps the
border open - has postponed but not resolved the fundamental issue. There is no
known way of having a fully open border other than membership of, or at least
complete conformity with, the single market and customs union. So although the
British position is still that we will leave both of these we have also agreed
that in the absence of solving this insoluble contradiction there will be a
soft Brexit.So where
does this take us? It seems to mean that hard Brexit is not going to happen, because
no free trade deal can solve the border issue, despite what hard Brexiters imagine.
But it also seems to mean there will probably not be a ‘no deal’ Brexit, because
the default position outlined in the phase 1 agreement effectively defines no
deal as soft Brexit. I suppose it’s conceivable that Britain could at that
point rip up the phase 1 deal, and make itself an international pariah, but
that is far less likely now that we have agreed to that deal.It might be
wondered, then, why it seems as if the ultra Brexiters in the Tory party are willing to endorse the deal as a triumph for Theresa May. The
answer to that is that although soft Brexit now seems much more likely, the
possibility of reversing Brexit and simply remaining in the EU is now far less
likely. If the Ultras do not support May now, her government collapses and
everything gets thrown into the air again, which certainly would not ensure
remaining in the EU but might make it possible. Now, she will probably limp on
until after March 2019 at which point remaining in the EU becomes impossible.
Moreover, to the extent that Brexiters really do believe that there is a form
of free trade deal that can avoid a hard border they may not realise that hard
Brexit is now very unlikely.It’s a
different situation for the Ultras outside of government, of course, who need
take no responsibility for avoiding chaos and have nothing to lose from the
government falling. Thus Nigel Farage and others describe the deal as a humiliation and a complete capitulation. And he is right – the consequence
of the policy that he successfully urged on Britain was always going to be
humiliation in one form or another, as I argued a while ago. In fact, the way Britain has
conducted itself since the referendum compounds this: it is now a real
possibility that rather than have a soft Brexit via EFTA/EEA, with the various
rights that brings, by choice, we may have a soft Brexit with absolutely zero
involvement in the ‘full alignment’ we have agreed to, ending up in a kind of
‘bespoke limbo’.In the
meantime, attention will now turn to trade talks but perhaps more significantly
to the question of the length and terms of a transition period. It is already
clear that this transition will be on the terms that the EU has set out –
meaning continuation of every aspect of membership including ECJ jurisdiction
and freedom of movement, but with no political representation at all. Brexiters
will protest about that but will accept it, for all of the reasons they have
had to accept the phase 1 agreement. It also seems obvious that this transition
will last for more than two years – five or even ten seems likely – and
therefore probably beyond the next General Election. Again, this will have to
be extracted tooth by tooth from the howling mouth of the Ultras.